Bulletin N° 923

 

 “Blade Runner 2049”

http://123movies4u.site/blade-runner-2049/?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=976359a8f8ce5db67df5162e67765d167fe6d127-1600434685-0-AR3dFL0DsRhMvYfw2zh-aDMCRvk-88HSlX7lXdz0S81tohyEXTkiBv97OsDTSMDzK3OhY65-4Tc9nl9W00CbaHEkPnD10-5L39pNirs9srRiN5D3HvDrkKvuphSiiNUiLDueST677_VhTOnoK6kL6nwFWt4MSBdrT_U4YwzDpCA-gGh1sYQaeI0OuDghNgxkQGn4olFk1i_oMrIWFMB2tSc7EMNvhIhbHCe2iqgjw22OAQPvkVZpJlRi5TEHDjliw2sfhWrXeWMF3FMBQiOrrYhkTmb5NmAKWsjfh29N8dLG

or

http://123movies4u.site/blade-runner-2049/?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=99f8551799791b64ecd77d35de824f58ac8a89aa-1599821277-0-AZuowAsbvQoYkDMIY6l7wyEPJyd8vKbh5rtIJK-SpStUCiftt_AY_2Lo-Pp6UEr_rCJhlUeprCpqoIPkdK5FMKSKAYOZnHEoTFBe75lozmN3Mhyb19F_Zy4IpjMj7tx8k0hmdVbOCvTBAWVfwl1vSmnaLRLW5DGvKs9gg7F65vMoTJUT-B9qP-u-r6LcOT0sIjEP2WXSM55tWc4gc9u6UvETXuRAx0SInGNUlBbM11NPtcMBuYi5QsoWiSrImhHHxogkQ2ZCa7RsCC7CNTntHbmq4WVlktboD8MsW9x4hPnl

2017

(2:43:26)

 

 

Subject:  A plan is a plan, is a plan, is a plan… : right-wing Think Tanks and what they do for a living.

50+ Best Social Hierarchy Study images | social stratification, hierarchy,  middle class

 

 

September 18, 2020

Grenoblem France

 

Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,

 

Between reading and watching video reports, I’ve been experimenting recently with haikus:

 

Once, I was thirty;

Now, pushing seventy-five.

Still, destined to die.

 

I showed this one to my daughter. She told me she thought it was essentialist, and suggested that I work on expanding my imagination to supersede my reductionist thinking.

 

I replied with another haiku:

 

We share our planet

With criminal elements,

Which could kill us now.

 

She bolted from the kitchen, without a word, late to another birthday party.

 

 

* * *

The new transfer of “ownership” of the world is not a done deal. We have seen the attempt before. The German-born, non-Marxist, philosopher Hannah Arendt discussed it in her classic 1963 report, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. (See Eric Hobsbawm’s critique of Arendt’s « poetic license » in « LE SOCIAL ET LE POLITIQUE : UN BILAN DE L'ESSAI SUR LARÉVOLUTION D'HANNAH ARENDT, » by Stéphanie Roza)

 

Below is a description of Eichmann in Jerusalem "Epilogue" (1963,1964), taken  from The Hannah Arendt Papers (Internet page 7), in which she concluded: this corporatist mass murderer was “not a monster, but rather a buffoon….”

 

 

“Evil: The Crime against Humanity”
by Jerome Kohn, Director, Hannah Arendt Center, New School University

(From Eichmann in Jerusalem "Epilogue".

The Hannah Arendt Papers, The Library of Congress Manuscript Division.)

 

“Arendt saw Eichmann, on trial for his life, as a "buffoon" whose inability to speak was closely connected with an inability to think, namely, to think from the standpoint of somebody else. No communication was possible with him, not because he lied but because he was surrounded by the most reliable of all safeguards against the words and the presence of others, and hence against reality as such . . . [It was] proof against reason and argument and information and insight of any kind (see Eichmann in Jerusalem, chapters 3 and 5).

 

“Having encountered such a man, Arendt saw that the banality of evil is potentially far greater in extent--indeed limitless--than the growth of evil from a "root." A root can be uprooted, which is what she meant to do when she spoke of "destroying" totalitarianism, but the evil perpetrated by an Eichmann can spread over the face of the earth like a "fungus" precisely because it has no root. Furthermore, the case of Eichmann led Arendt to see that at least one evildoer was not "corruptible." Having overcome or in his case forgotten any inclination he may have had to halt or hinder the organization and transportation of millions of innocent Jews to their deaths, Eichmann boasted that he had done his duty to the end! Unlike Himmler, his ultimate superior in the chain of command and a chief architect of the "final solution," Eichmann never attempted to "negotiate" with the enemy when it became clear that the Nazi cause was lost. He declared, on the contrary, "that he had lived his whole life . . . according to a Kantian definition of duty," (see Eichmann in Jerusalem, chapter 8) and Arendt noted that "to the surprise of everybody, Eichmann came up with an approximately correct definition of [Kant's] categorical imperative," though he had "distorted" it in practice. She admitted, moreover, "that Eichmann's distortion agrees with what he himself called the version of Kant 'for the household use of the little man,'" the identification of one's will with "the source" of law, which for Eichmann was the will of the Führer.

 

“Perhaps the most provocative aspect of Eichmann in Jerusalem is its study of human conscience. The court's refusal to consider seriously the question of Eichmann's conscience resulted in its failure to confront what Arendt called "the central moral, legal, and political phenomena of our century." The Israeli judges understood conscience traditionally as the voice of God or lumen naturale, speaking or shining in every human soul, telling or illuminating the difference between right and wrong, and this simply did not apply in the case of Eichmann. Eichmann had a conscience, and it seems to have "functioned in the expected way" for a few weeks after he became engaged in the transport of Jews, and then, when he heard no voice saying Thou shalt not kill but on the contrary every voice saying Thou shalt kill, "it began to function the other way around." (see Eichmann in Jerusalem, chapter 6) And this was by no means true only for Eichmann. Arendt was convinced by testimony presented at the trial that a general "moral collapse" had been experienced throughout Europe, from which even respected members of the Jewish leadership were not exempt.5 (see Eichmann in Jerusalem, chapter 7)

 

“And so the controversy raged. Arendt may have exaggerated the extent to which the attacks against her were prompted by a "conspiracy" of the Jewish establishment and leveled against a book that was "never written." (see "Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship") Certainly not everyone who disagreed with her, sometimes vehemently, was malevolent or ill-informed (see letter from Hans Jonas to H.A. marked "etwa Januar 1964"). Much that was said was indeed preposterous, for example, that she attempted to exonerate Eichmann when she had done exactly the opposite; or that she was morally insensitive in asking why Jews had not fought back, a question raised by the prosecutor but never by Arendt, who understood that the processes of dehumanization precluded rebellion. Yet many were deeply disturbed by her depiction of an Eichmann who was not an ideological anti-Semite nor even criminally motivated--he wanted to rise in rank not by murdering anyone but by "conscientiously" doing his job. "Intent to do wrong" was not, in Arendt's opinion, proved against him. He was not "morally insane" for in his own "muddled" way he distinguished between right and wrong, and the results of psychological tests showed that he was not a "monster" but frighteningly normal.

 

“Eichmann was not stupid; he knew but did not think what he was doing, not in the past and not in Jerusalem. He contradicted himself constantly, but he did not lie; his conscience did not bother him; and he did not suffer from remorse: "He knew that what he had once called his duty was now called a crime, and he accepted this new code of judgment as if it were nothing but another language rule" (see "Thinking and Moral Considerations"). Therefore it was important to Arendt that the justice of the death sentence delivered by the court be seen by all, and for that reason she offered her own judgment, addressing Eichmann in the following terms:

 

‘Just as you supported and carried out a policy of not wanting to share the earth with the Jewish people and the people of a number of other nations--as though you and your superiors had any right to determine who should and who should not inhabit the world--we find that no one, that is, no member of the human race, can be expected to share the world with you. This is the reason, and the only reason, you must hang.’ (see Eichmann in Jerusalem, "Epilogue" -- part one and part two").

 

“The "Epilogue" to Eichmann in Jerusalem deals with the legality of the Jerusalem trial, which for the most part Arendt defended, but she thought it necessary to clarify what the Israeli court's judgment left obscure. Eichmann was guilty of "an attack upon human diversity as such, that is, upon a characteristic of the 'human status' without which the very words 'mankind' or 'humanity' would be devoid of meaning." Arendt recognized in Eichmann, who struck her as "not even strange" (nicht einmal unheimlich) (see letter from H.A. to Heinrich Bluecher, April 15, 1961), the exemplary criminal capable of committing "the new crime, the crime against humanity." He "supported and carried out" the physical destruction of European Jewry and would have done the same for any group or anyone at all whom a power higher than himself had decreed unfit to live.”

 

 

 

 

 

The 25 + items below are a selection from current events which represent the power of the human mind to either enslave or to liberate humankind. Also, of course, we have the perverse ability to voluntarily seek our own enslavement, as well as the ability to struggle for our own liberation.

 

 

Sincerely,

Francis Feeley

___

Professeur honoraire de l'Université Grenoble-Alpes
Ancien Directeur de Researches
Université de Paris-Nanterre
Director of The Center for the Advanced Study
of American Institutions and Social Movements
(CEIMSA-in-Exile)
The University of California-San Diego
http://www.ceimsa.org 

 

 

a.

"Empty Planet: Preparing for the Global Population Decline"

https://youtu.be/bSAgHvETNSg

(1:32:06)

+

News From Underground

From: Mark Crispin Miller

Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2020
Subject: [MCM] A pandemic? Not so fast....

 

From April, a piece whose point has been deliberately obscured by all the propaganda. "Pandemic" is a terroristic misnomer, like "cases" and "infections."

 

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-deaths-compared-with-swine-flu/

+

Why Lockdowns Are the Wrong Policy. Sweden’s COVID-19 Strategy

https://www.globalresearch.ca/video-why-lockdowns-wrong-policy/5724020

by Prof. Johan Giesecke, Anders Tegnell, and UnHerd

+

PLANDEMIC INDOCTORNATION – This will fundamentally shift how you see coronavirus!

https://www.bitchute.com/video/LwYSL0I9YQra/

August 21, 2020

(1:15:43)

+

News From Underground

From: Mark Crispin Miller
Sent: Sunday, April 05, 2020
Subject: [MCM] More on the possibility that "we're treating the wrong disease"

 

 

Medium has taken this piece down, but it seems worth considering, as it

appears to bolster Dr. Kyle-Sidell's view of COVID-19.

 

Here's a recent interview with him:

https://thinkingcriticalcare.com/2020/03/28/covid-clinical-discussion-w-cameron-kyle-sidell-nyc-ed-icu-doc-in-the-trenches-foamed/

MCM

 

Covid-19 had us all fooled, but now we might have finally found its secret.

 

libertymavenstock

 

Apr 5 · 8 min read

 

https://medium.com/@agaiziunas/covid-19-had-us-all-fooled-but-now-we-might-have-finally-found-its-secret-91182386efcb 

 

In the last 3–5 days, a mountain of anecdotal evidence has come out of NYC, Italy, Spain, etc. about COVID-19 and characteristics of patients who get seriously ill. It’s not only piling up but now leading to a general field-level consensus backed up by a few previously little-known studies that we’ve had it all wrong the whole time. Well, a few had some things eerily correct (cough Trump cough), especially with Hydroxychloroquine with Azithromycin, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

There is no ‘pneumonia’ nor ARDS. At least not the ARDS with established treatment protocols and procedures we’re familiar with. Ventilators are not only the wrong solution, but high pressure intubation can actually wind up causing more damage than without, not to mention complications from tracheal scarring and ulcers given the duration of intubation often required… They may still have a use in the immediate future for patients too far to bring back with this newfound knowledge, but moving forward a new treatment protocol needs to be established so we stop treating patients for the wrong disease.

The past 48 hours or so have seen a huge revelation: COVID-19 causes prolonged and progressive hypoxia (starving your body of oxygen) by binding to the heme groups in hemoglobin in your red blood cells. People are simply desaturating (losing o2 in their blood), and that’s what eventually leads to organ failures that kill them, not any form of ARDS or pneumonia. All the damage to the lungs you see in CT scans are from the release of oxidative iron from the hemes, this overwhelms the natural defenses against pulmonary oxidative stress and causes that nice, always-bilateral ground glass opacity in the lungs. Patients returning for re-hospitalization days or weeks after recovery suffering from apparent delayed post-hypoxic leukoencephalopathy strengthen the notion COVID-19 patients are suffering from hypoxia despite no signs of respiratory ‘tire out’ or fatigue.

Here’s the breakdown of the whole process, including some ELI5-level cliff notes. Much has been simplified just to keep it digestible and layman-friendly.

Your red blood cells carry oxygen from your lungs to all your organs and the rest of your body. Red blood cells can do this thanks to hemoglobin, which is a protein consisting of four “hemes”. Hemes have a special kind of iron ion, which is normally quite toxic in its free form, locked away in its center with a porphyrin acting as it’s ‘container’. In this way, the iron ion can be ‘caged’ and carried around safely by the hemoglobin, but used to bind to oxygen when it gets to your lungs.

When the red blood cell gets to the alveoli, or the little sacs in your lungs where all the gas exchange happens, that special little iron ion can flip between FE2+ and FE3+ states with electron exchange and bond to some oxygen, then it goes off on its little merry way to deliver o2 elsewhere.

Here’s where COVID-19 comes in. Its glycoproteins bond to the heme, and in doing so that special and toxic oxidative iron ion is “disassociated” (released). It’s basically let out of the cage and now freely roaming around on its own. This is bad for two reasons:

1) Without the iron ion, hemoglobin can no longer bind to oxygen. Once all the hemoglobin is impaired, the red blood cell is essentially turned into a Freightliner truck cab with no trailer and no ability to store its cargo.. it is useless and just running around with COVID-19 virus attached to its porphyrin. All these useless trucks running around not delivering oxygen is what starts to lead to desaturation, or watching the patient’s spo2 levels drop. It is INCORRECT to assume traditional ARDS and in doing so, you’re treating the WRONG DISEASE. Think of it a lot like carbon monoxide poisoning, in which CO is bound to the hemoglobin, making it unable to carry oxygen. In those cases, ventilators aren’t treating the root cause; the patient’s lungs aren’t ‘tiring out’, they’re pumping just fine. The red blood cells just can’t carry o2, end of story. Only in this case, unlike CO poisoning in which eventually the CO can break off, the affected hemoglobin is permanently stripped of its ability to carry o2 because it has lost its iron ion. The body compensates for this lack of o2 carrying capacity and deliveries by having your kidneys release hormones like erythropoietin, which tell your bone marrow factories to ramp up production on new red blood cells with freshly made and fully functioning hemoglobin. This is the reason you find elevated hemoglobin and decreased blood oxygen saturation as one of the 3 primary indicators of whether the shit is about to hit the fan for a particular patient or not.

2) That little iron ion, along with millions of its friends released from other hemes, are now floating through your blood freely. As I mentioned before, this type of iron ion is highly reactive and causes oxidative damage. It turns out that this happens to a limited extent naturally in our bodies and we have cleanup & defense mechanisms to keep the balance. The lungs, in particular, have 3 primary defenses to maintain “iron homeostasis”, 2 of which are in the alveoli, those little sacs in your lungs we talked about earlier. The first of the two are little macrophages that roam around and scavenge up any free radicals like this oxidative iron. The second is a lining on the walls (called the epithelial surface) which has a thin layer of fluid packed with high levels of antioxidant molecules.. things like abscorbic acid (AKA Vitamin C) among others. Well, this is usually good enough for naturally occurring rogue iron ions but with COVID-19 running rampant your body is now basically like a progressive state letting out all the prisoners out of the prisons… it’s just too much iron and it begins to overwhelm your lungs’ countermeasures, and thus begins the process of pulmonary oxidative stress. This leads to damage and inflammation, which leads to all that nasty stuff and damage you see in CT scans of COVID-19 patient lungs. Ever noticed how it’s always bilateral? (both lungs at the same time) Pneumonia rarely ever does that, but COVID-19 does… EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

— — — — — — — — — — — — -

Once your body is now running out of control, with all your oxygen trucks running around without any freight, and tons of this toxic form of iron floating around in your bloodstream, other defenses kick in. While your lungs are busy with all this oxidative stress they can’t handle, and your organs are being starved of o2 without their constant stream of deliveries from red blood cell’s hemoglobin, and your liver is attempting to do its best to remove the iron and store it in its ‘iron vault’. Only its getting overwhelmed too. It’s starved for oxygen and fighting a losing battle from all your hemoglobin letting its iron free, and starts crying out “help, I’m taking damage!” by releasing an enzyme called alanine aminotransferase (ALT). BOOM, there is your second of 3 primary indicators of whether the shit is about to hit the fan for a particular patient or not.

Eventually, if the patient’s immune system doesn’t fight off the virus in time before their blood oxygen saturation drops too low, ventilator or no ventilator, organs start shutting down. No fuel, no work. The only way to even try to keep them going is max oxygen, even a hyperbaric chamber if one is available on 100% oxygen at multiple atmospheres of pressure, just to give what’s left of their functioning hemoglobin a chance to carry enough o2 to the organs and keep them alive. Yeah we don’t have nearly enough of those chambers, so some fresh red blood cells with normal hemoglobin in the form of a transfusion will have to do.

The core point being, treating patients with the iron ions stripped from their hemoglobin (rendering it abnormally nonfunctional) with ventilator intubation is futile, unless you’re just hoping the patient’s immune system will work its magic in time. The root of the illness needs to be addressed.

Best case scenario? Treatment regimen early, before symptoms progress too far. Hydroxychloroquine (more on that in a minute, I promise) with Azithromicin has shown fantastic, albeit critics keep mentioning ‘anecdotal’ to describe the mountain, promise and I’ll explain why it does so well next. But forget straight-up plasma with antibodies, that might work early but if the patient is too far gone they’ll need more. They’ll need all the blood: antibodies and red blood cells. No help in sending over a detachment of ammunition to a soldier already unconscious and bleeding out on the battlefield, you need to send that ammo along with some hemoglobin-stimulant-magic so that he can wake up and fire those shots at the enemy.

The story with Hydroxychloroquine

All that hilariously misguided and counterproductive criticism the media piled on chloroquine (purely for political reasons) as a viable treatment will now go down as the biggest Fake News blunder to rule them all. The media actively engaged their activism to fight ‘bad orange man’ at the cost of thousands of lives. Shame on them.

How does chloroquine work? Same way as it does for malaria. You see, malaria is this little parasite that enters the red blood cells and starts eating hemoglobin as its food source. The reason chloroquine works for malaria is the same reason it works for COVID-19 — while not fully understood, it is suspected to bind to DNA and interfere with the ability to work magic on hemoglobin. The same mechanism that stops malaria from getting its hands on hemoglobin and gobbling it up seems to do the same to COVID-19 (essentially little snippets of DNA in an envelope) from binding to it. On top of that, Hydroxychloroquine (an advanced descendant of regular old chloroquine) lowers the pH which can interfere with the replication of the virus. Again, while the full details are not known, the entire premise of this potentially ‘game changing’ treatment is to prevent hemoglobin from being interfered with, whether due to malaria or COVID-19.

No longer can the media and armchair pseudo-physicians sit in their little ivory towers, proclaiming “DUR so stoopid, malaria is bacteria, COVID-19 is virus, anti-bacteria drug no work on virus!”. They never got the memo that a drug doesn’t need to directly act on the pathogen to be effective. Sometimes it’s enough just to stop it from doing what it does to hemoglobin, regardless of the means it uses to do so.

Anyway, enough of the rant. What’s the end result here? First, the ventilator emergency needs to be re-examined. If you’re putting a patient on a ventilator because they’re going into a coma and need mechanical breathing to stay alive, okay we get it. Give ’em time for their immune systems to pull through. But if they’re conscious, alert, compliant — keep them on O2. Max it if you have to. If you HAVE to inevitably ventilate, do it at low pressure but max O2. Don’t tear up their lungs with max PEEP, you’re doing more harm to the patient because you’re treating the wrong disease.

Ideally, some form of treatment needs to happen to:

  1. Inhibit viral growth and replication. Here plays CHQ+ZPAK+ZINC or other retroviral therapies being studies. Less virus, less hemoglobin losing its iron, less severity and damage.
  2. Therapies used for anyone with abnormal hemoglobin or malfunctioning red blood cells. Blood transfusions. Whatever, I don’t know the full breadth and scope because I’m not a physician. But think along those lines, and treat the real disease. If you’re thinking about giving them plasma with antibodies, maybe if they’re already in bad shape think again and give them BLOOD with antibodies, or at least blood followed by plasma with antibodies.
  3. Now that we know more about how this virus works and affects our bodies, a whole range of options should open up.
  4. Don’t trust China. China is ASSHOE. (disclaimer: not talking about the people, just talking about the regime). They covered this up and have caused all kinds of death and carnage, both literal and economic. The ripples of this pandemic will be felt for decades.

Fini.

===========

 

b.

Noam Chomsky: “Elon Musk, SETI, Harper’s Magazine, JK Rowling & Artificial Intelligence”

https://youtu.be/Iaz6JIxDh6Y

(1:37:36)

+

QUESTIONING
COVID

Clinicians, Researchers, & Health Experts from Around the World Interrogating the Mainstream Narrative Around the Pandemic

https://questioningcovid.com/

 

“Excellent site for dissident expertise on the whole COVID-19 mythology.”

--Mark Crispin Miller

+

“COVIS-19: Peter Myers’ Up-Date Collection, Sept. 12, 2020”

http://www.ceimsa.org/publications/Scholars/2020.13.pdf

from Ellen Brown

+

EXPOSED!!!

 Bill Gates Offered $10 billion Bribe For Forced Vaccination In Africa

Bill Gates vaccinations in Africa – antivaccine hatred

https://www.bitchute.com/video/YL110KVuS7Do/

September 4, 2020

(8:19)

 

The opposition political parties rejected the “foreign-sponsored Bill” mandating the compulsory vaccination of all Nigerians even when the vaccines have not been discovered and demanded the Speaker be impeached if he forces the bill on members. The development comes a month after Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nephew of former American President John F. Kennedy, in a lengthy piece exposed Bill Gates agenda in India and his “obsession with vaccines”

 

+

Bill Gates urges Congress to spend $4B for COVID-19 vaccines in poor countries

Bill and Melinda Gates on the fight against global inequality | Financial  Times

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/public-global-health/516458-bill-gates-urges-congress-to-spend-4b-for-covid-19

by Kaelan Deese

+

Is There A Flu Shot / COVID Link?

https://www.corbettreport.com/is-there-a-flu-shot-covid-link-questions-for-corbett-068/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CorbettReportRSS+%28The+Corbett+Report%29

with James Corbett

(24 :12)

+

Did the Federal Government Just Secretly Take Over Vaccine Policy Usurping the Authority of the States?

https://vaccineimpact.com/2020/did-the-federal-government-just-secretly-take-over-vaccine-policy-usurping-the-authority-of-the-states/

by Wayne Rohde

 

 

COVID-19 deaths compared with “Swine Flu”

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-deaths-compared-with-swine-flu/

by Carl  Heneghan and  Tom Jefferson

April 9, 2020

The age affected structure doesn’t fit with pandemic theory


“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

Pandemic, as the definition goes, is the worldwide spread of a new disease. Most of the historical analysis point to those in younger age groups being disproportionately affected in a pandemic. As opposed to seasonal outbreaks where older people are more likely to be affected.

In  this current  pandemic, the age structure of those most affected reveals a tension between whether COVID-19 is operating more like a seasonal viral effect or is similar  in its effect to previous pandemics

+

Germany Stops Harvest, Bans Agriculture as African Swine Fever Reaches Europe

http://www.iceagefarmer.com/2020/09/12/germany-stops-harvest-bans-agriculture-as-african-swine-fever-reaches-europe/

 with Ice Age Farmer

 

===========

 

c.

Remembering Kevin Zeese: A fighter for peace and justice

Kevin Zeese, ¡presenté! - Struggle - La Lucha

https://therealnews.com/columns/remembering-kevin-zeese

by Sarafina Harper

+

On the Lasting Influences of David Graeber

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/15/on-the-lasting-influences-of-david-graeber/

by Jason Kirkpatrick

 

===========

 

d.

Techno-Tyranny: How The US National Security State Is Using Coronavirus To Fulfill An Orwellian Vision

https://unlimitedhangout.com/2020/05/reports/techno-tyranny-how-the-us-national-security-state-is-using-coronavirus-to-fulfill-an-orwellian-vision/

by Whitney Webb

+

James Corbett on Solutions for Resisting Technocracy

https://www.corbettreport.com/interview-1576-james-corbett-on-solutions-for-resisting-technocracy/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CorbettReportRSS+%28The+Corbett+Report%29

with James Corbett and Vinny Eastwood

(1:03:03)

+

This is the full membership list of the Christian Right's secretive and powerful Council for National Policy

https://thegrayzone.com/2020/08/30/membership-list-powerful-secretive-christian-right-america/

by Max Blumenthal

+

The theology of police authority: the impact of Biblical text Romans 13

https://youtu.be/X0hwSxM0zKg

 (20:48)

with Taya Graham and Steve Horn

+

Mainstream media misses damning evidence in Blueleaks police data dump

https://therealnews.com/stories/blueleaks-data-breach-mainstream-media-misses-damning-evidence

with Taya Graham

(15:30)

+

America's settler colonialist roots explain how we see property rights

https://therealnews.com/stories/americas-colonialist-roots-explain-property-rights

with Gerald Horn

(31:58)

+

The Great White Heist

http://www.blackagendareport.com/great-white-heist

by Michael Harriot

+

Sept 19: A Nationwide Day of Protest, and of Dialogue on Community Control of Police

http://www.blackagendareport.com/sept-19-nationwide-day-protest-and-dialogue-community-control-police

by Glen Ford

+

 

News from the Underground

From: Mark Crispin Miller
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2020
Subject: [MCM] What's happening in France should spark a second revolution (and that should happen everywhere)

 

Paramilitary robo-cops attacking protesters, who stand up to them.

 

The global crackdown is intensifying, without a peep from "our free press."

 

https://twitter.com/askeamonn/status/1305129705146912769?s=20

 

[MCM]

+

“Israel to enter full-blown lockdown, schools and "non-essential businesses" shut down, on 9/18 (this Friday)”

https://www.rt.com/news/500576-netanyahu-coronavirus-lockdown-protests/

 

[MCM]

 

===========

 

e.

Alfred McCoy Breaks Down the History of America’s Geopolitical Maneuvering

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1Ey_-1447s

with  Jeremy Scahill

(audio, 28 :12)

+

Alfred McCoy on Asian wars and information regimes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpyLinQXvHg

(1:40:35)

+

News From Underground

From: Mark Crispin Miller

Sent: Sunday, August 09, 2020
Subject: [MCM] The awful truth about Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been censored to this day

 

An excellent essay from 2012, still all too relevant in 2020.

 

MCM 

Duty to Warn 

Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Backlash Against Historical Truth 

By Gary G. Kohls – This article was first published in August 2012 (2370 words)

Last week was the anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the whole truth continues to be heavily censored and mythologized, starting with the news of the events that created understandable joy among the American civilian victors of that awful war 

Most Americans took in, as gospel truth, the heavily edited stories about the end of the war. To the average American, the war’s end was such a relief that there was no questioning about the mechanisms used to end the war. For the soldiers who were war-weary, no moral questions were raised regarding the use of the atomic bombs. 

The immediate history was written by the victors, of course, with no balancing input from the losing side. But, several decades later, after intensive research by unbiased historians, we now know that the patriotic narrative contained a lot of false information, often orchestrated by war-justifying militarists – starting with General Douglas MacArthur.

MacArthur, aka “the American Caesar,” successfully imposed near total censorship of what really happened at Ground Zero. One of his first acts after taking over as viceroy of Japan was to confiscate and/or destroy all the unpleasant photographic evidence documenting the horrors of the atomic bombings. 

One example of the backlash against historical truth was the fact that – in 1995 - the Smithsonian Institute was preparing to correct the   patriotic myths about the war crimes committed in August 1945 by staging an honest, historically accurate 50th anniversary display exploring all sides of the atomic bombings. This provoked serious right-wing reactionary outrage from veterans’ groups and other “patriot” groups, including House Speaker Newt Gingrich from the GOP-dominated US Congress.

The Smithsonian removed all of the contextually-important aspects of the story, especially the bomb-related civilian atrocity stories. So again, powerful politically-motivated groups had again falsified history because of a fear that truth, albeit historically-accurate, would contradict their deeply held beliefs, an intolerable psychological situation for many blindered super-patriots.

The Smithsonian historians did have a gun to their heads, of course, but in the melee, the mainstream media – and the easily brain-washable consumers of propaganda – ignored a vital historical point. And that is this: the war could have ended as early as the spring of 1945 without the August atomic bombings, and therefore there could have averted the three-month bloody battle of Okinawa that resulted in the deaths of thousands of American Marines with tens of thousands of Japanese military casualties and uncounted thousands of Okinawan civilian casualties.

In addition, if the efforts had succeeded at ending the war via early Japanese efforts for an armistice, there would have been no need for the atomic bombs nor for an American land invasion – the basis of the subsequent propaganda campaign that retroactively justified the use of the bombs.

President Harry Truman was fully aware of Japan’s search for ways to honorably surrender months before the fateful order to incinerate defenseless women, children, infants and the elderly people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who had never been given a choice by their militarist, fascist government about going to war in the first place. 

Top-secret intelligence data, de-classified in the 1980s, showed that the contingency plans for a two-stage US invasion of the mainland (the first one no sooner than Nov. 1, 1945, and the second one in the spring of 1946) would have been unnecessary.

Japan was working on peace negotiations through its Moscow ambassador as early as April of 1945 when the battle of Okinawa was just starting. Harry Hopkins, President Truman’s close adviser, was aware of Japan’s desire for an armistice. He cabled the president from Moscow, saying:

“Japan is doomed, and the Japanese know it. Peace feelers are being put out by certain elements in Japan.” 

Truman’s team knew of these and other developments because the U.S. had broken the Japanese code years earlier, and U.S. intelligence was intercepting all of Japan’s military and diplomatic messages. On July 13, 1945, Foreign Minister Togo said: “Unconditional surrender (giving up all sovereignty, thereby deposing Hirohito, the Emperor god) is the only obstacle to peace.”

What Did Truman Know? 

Since Truman and his advisers knew about these efforts, the war could have ended through diplomacy, first with a cease-fire and then a negotiated peace, by simply conceding a post-war figurehead position for the emperor Hirohito who was regarded as a deity in Japan.

That reasonable concession was – seemingly illogically – refused by the U.S. in their demands for “unconditional surrender,” which was initially put forward at the 1943 Casablanca Conference between U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and reiterated at the Potsdam Conference (July 1945) between Truman, Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin.

When General MacArthur heard about the demand for unconditional surrender, he was appalled. He actually recommended dropping that demand to facilitate the process of ending the war peacefully.

William Manchester, in his biography of MacArthur, American Caesar, wrote: “Had the General’s advice been followed, the resort to atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have been unnecessary.” 

Even Secretary of War Henry Stimson said:

“The true question was not whether surrender could have been achieved without the use of the bomb but whether a different diplomatic and military course would have led to an earlier surrender. A large segment of the Japanese cabinet was ready in the spring of 1945 to accept substantially the same terms as those finally agreed on.”

In other words, Stimson felt that the U.S. was prolonging the war, including the battle for Okinawa, and could have made using the bombs unnecessary if it had engaged in honest negotiations.

Shortly after WWII, military analyst Hanson Baldwin wrote:

“The Japanese, in a military sense, were in a hopeless strategic situation by the time the Potsdam Declaration (insisting on Japan’s unconditional surrender) was made.” 

Admiral William Leahy, top military aide to President Truman, said in his war memoirs, I Was There:

“It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons. My own feeling is that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages.”

And General Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a personal visit to President Truman a couple of weeks before the bombings, urged him not to use the atomic bombs. Eisenhower said:

“It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing . . . to use the atomic bomb, to kill and terrorize civilians, without even attempting (negotiations), was a double crime.”

Yet, after the bombings of August 6 and 9, the “unconditional” surrender terms were quietly dropped. The emperor was allowed to remain in place as spiritual head of Japan, the very condition that made the Japanese leadership refuse to accept the humiliating “unconditional surrender” terms. 

So the two essential questions that need answering (to figure out what was going on behind the scenes) are these:

1) Why did the U.S. refuse to accept Japan’s only concession concerning their surrender (Japan’s ability to retain their emperor) and

2) with the end of the war in the Pacific already a certainty, why were the bombs still used? 

The Decision 

Scholars have determined that there were a number of factors that contributed to Truman’s decision to use the bombs, including the desire for revenge, the curiosity about the effects about the “new-type” weapons, and the fear of allowing Russia to share the spoils of war. 

The U.S. military and political leadership, not to mention most war-weary Americans, had a tremendous appetite for revenge because of the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. 

The fissionable material in Hiroshima’s bomb was uranium and Nagasaki’s was plutonium. Scientific curiosity about the differences between the two weapons was a significant factor that pushed the project to its completion. 

The Manhattan Project scientists and the U.S. Army director of the project, General Leslie Groves, wanted answers to a multitude of questions raised by the project, including “what would happen if a city was leveled by a single nuclear bomb?”

The decision to use both bombs had been made well in advance of August 1945. Harry Truman did not specifically order the bombing of Nagasaki.

The three-day interval between the two bombs was unconscionably short. Japan’s communications and transportation capabilities were in shambles, and no one, neither the U.S. military nor the Japanese high command, fully understood what had happened at Hiroshima, particularly the short-term or long-term after-effects of the radiation. The Manhattan Project was so top secret that even MacArthur had been kept out of the loop until a few days before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. 

The Russians had proclaimed their intent to enter the war with Japan 90 days after V-E Day (Victory in Europe Day, May 8, 1945), which would have been Aug. 8, two days after Hiroshima was bombed. Indeed, America’s Russian allies did declare war on Japan on Aug. 8 and were advancing eastward across Manchuria, eager to reclaim territories lost to Japan in the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War.

The U.S. didn’t want Japan surrendering to Russia (soon to be the only other superpower and a future enemy) so the first nuclear threat “messages” of the Cold War were “sent”. 

Russia indeed received far less of the spoils of war than they had hoped for, and the two superpowers were instantly and deeply mired in the arms-race stalemate that eventually resulted in their mutual moral (and fiscal) bankruptcies that occurred a generation or two later. 

The Reality

 

A victim of the Nagasaki bombing. (Unknown/public domain in Japan/Wikimedia Commons.) 

An estimated 80,000 innocent, defenseless civilians, plus 20,000 essentially weaponless young Japanese conscripts died instantly in the Hiroshima bombing. Hundreds of thousands more suffered slow deaths from agonizing burns, radiation sickness, leukemia and virtually untreatable infections for the rest of their shortened lives; and generations of the survivor’s progeny were doomed to suffer horrific radiation-induced illnesses, cancers and premature deaths that are still on-going at this very hour. 

Another sobering reality that has been covered up is the fact that 12 American Navy pilots, their existence well-known to U.S. command, were instantly incinerated in the Hiroshima jail on Aug. 6, 1945. 

The 75,000 dead at Nagasaki on Aug. 9 were virtually all civilians, except for the inhabitants of an Allied POW camp near ground zero. They were instantly carbonized or vaporized by an experimental weapon that was developed by obedient, unaware scientists and soldiers, and blessed by Christian military chaplains who were just doing their duty by obeying orders.

The War Department knew of the existence of the Nagasaki POWs and, when reminded of that fact before the B-29 fleet embarked on the mission, simply replied: “Targets previously assigned for Centerboard (code name for the Kokura/Nagasaki mission) remain unchanged.”

To obscure some of these unpleasant truths, the official War Department/National Security State-approved version of the end of the war in the Pacific contained a new batch of myths which are continuously fed to us by the corporate, military, political and media opinion leaders that represent the war-makers and war profiteers of the world.

The well-honed propaganda of the war machine manufactures glory out of inglorious gruesomeness, as we have witnessed in the censored reportage of the U.S. military invasions and occupations of sovereign nations like North Korea, Iran, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, the Philippines, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti, Colombia, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc, etc. And this list doesn’t even start to reveal the uncountable Pentagon/CIA covert operations and assassination plots that were secretly orchestrated in the rest of the planet. 

But somehow most humans in general and Americans in particular still hang on to a shaky “my country right or wrong” patriotism, desperately wanting to believe the myths that come from the ubiquitous “chicken hawk” politicians, military leaders and media talking heads that are in their employ of the ruling class elites 

While it is true that the U.S. military has faced down the occasional despot, Americans tend to remain blind to the fact that our nation has historically supported right-wing, anti-democracy,  fascist dictatorships that make the world unsafe for democracy while ensuring easy access for vulture capitalists, multinational corporations, Big Banks and other aexploiters to be able to do their dirty “profits-uber-alles”  work. 

The justification of the atrocities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are symbolic of the brain-washing that makes possible all “total wars,” which always result in the varieties of mass slaughter that are euphemistically known as  “collateral damage” or “friendly fire.”

It might already be too late to rescue and resuscitate a more humanitarian, peace-loving America. It might be too late to effectively confront the corporate hijacking of liberal democracy in America. It might be too late to successfully bring down the arrogant and greedy ruling elites who are selfishly exploiting the resources of the world and dragging the planet and its creatures down the road to destruction 

But there is always hope. Rather than being silent about the wars that ruthless warmongers are provoking all over the planet (with the very willing pushes by the Pentagon, the weapons industry, the weapons industry’s global investors and their war-hawk lapdogs in Congress), people of conscience need to ramp up their resistance and teach the truth of history, even if painful lessons will be revealed.

Americans need to start owning up to the uncountable war crimes that have been hidden from history, perhaps starting with the war crime bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And then we need to go to the streets, publicly protesting and courageously refusing to cooperate with those who are transforming America into a criminal rogue nation that will eventually be targeted for its downfall by the billions of suffering victims outside our borders, just as happened to Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Fascist Spain and Fascist Japan after World War II.

Doing what is right for the whole of humanity for a change, rather than just doing what is profitable or advantageous for our over-privileged, over-consumptive and unsustainable American way of life, would be real honor, real patriotism and an essential start toward real peace.

===========

 

f.

Trainings for the Not-Yet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH5gGf2ADzY

with David Harvey

(2:18:30)

 

On Wednesday 4 December 2019, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht proudly presented a lecture by Distinguished Professor David Harvey – “Disrupting Neoliberal Urban Governance: New Organisational Forms” for the Future. The lecture focused in part on the theory and practice of Urban Front, a transnational urban consultancy co-founded by Harvey and Associate Professor Miguel Robles-Durán - Harvey's lecture is preceded by a short introduction by Robles-Durán. Launched during the Chicago Architecture Biennial in 2019 - a network made up of independent associates around the world. The network provides trans-disciplinary research support, tactical directions, and critical advice to diverse governments and organizations aiming to confront the contradictions of neoliberal urbanization and to develop new visions for the well-being of its citizens. The lecture addresses the theoretical proposition of Urban Front and opens a discussion on new forms of institutional practice within the neoliberal condition. --- This lecture was part of a two-day program with Urban Front (David Harvey and Miguel Robles-Durán), taking place at BAK on 4 and 5 December 2019 as part of Trainings for the Not-Yet (14 September 2019–12 January 2020).

+

COVID-911: From Homeland Security to Biosecurity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opAyJt94Kmo&app=desktop

with James Corbett

(33:36)

 

===========

 

g.

Are you awake yet? CDC admits 94% of covid deaths DIDN'T DIE OF COVID and 90% of tests were NEGATIVE

https://www.bitchute.com/video/dwZzwikuBdCw/

(39:58)

 

===========

h.

Lord Rothschild freely admits how his family created Israel – The Full Interview

Lord Rothschild: Trump Is Threatening To Destroy The New World Order | Jew  World Order

https://www.bitchute.com/video/0NMwL0W6rtBe/

(15:55)

+

How Israel lit match for deadly fire

https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-israel-lit-match-deadly-fire/31201

The Electronic Intifada

 +

TUC calls for Israel sanctions to “end apartheid”

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/tuc-calls-israel-sanctions-end-apartheid

The Electronic Intifada

 

===========

i.

Michael Parenti, The Darker Myths of Empire: Heart of Darkness Series"

Mapping the Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. The story begins on the  Nellie, a yawl that is in wait on the Thames River. - ppt download

https://youtu.be/OOF56wYTl1w

(1:23:01)

 +

 

From: Jim O'Brien via H-PAD
Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2020
Subject: [H-PAD] H-PAD Notes, 9/10/20: Links to recent articles of interest

 

 

Links to Recent Articles of Interest

 

"Patton and Westy Meet in a Bar"

By Andrew Bacevich, TomDispatch.com, posted September 10

A fanciful alcohol-fueled conversation between long-dead generals George Patton and William Westmoreland and a fictitious general who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The author is a retired Army colonel and a professor emeritus of history and international relations at Boston University.

 

"Creating Refugees: Displacement Caused by the United States' Post-9/11 Wars"

By David Vine et al., Watson Institute, Brown University, posted September 8

This new report from the Watson Institute's Costs of War Project at Brown University estimates that "at least 37 million people have fled their homes in the eight most violent wars the U.S. military has launched or participated in since 2001."

 

"'Allende Wins'"

Briefing book edited by Peter Kornbluh, National Security Archive, posted September 4

On the 50th anniversary of socialist Salvador Allende's election as president of Chile, Georgetown University's National Security Archive has published declassified documents showing that the Nixon administration began immediate efforts to destabilize Chile, leading to the military coup of September 1973.

 

"Obama's 'Biggest Mistake' Is Still Wreaking Havoc"

By Stephen Kinzer, Boston Globe, posted September 3

On the continuing damage done by the 2011 NATO bombing of Libya. The author is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University.

 

"Gerald Ford Rushed Out a Vaccine. It Was a Fiasco"

By Rick Perlstein, New York Times, posted September 2

On the Ford administration's hurried election-year production of a vaccine that caused hundreds of cases of the paralyzing Guillain-Barre syndrome. The author has written several books on modern American conservatism, most recently Reaganland: America's Right Turn 1976-1980 (Simon and Schuster, 2020).

 

"Opening Up New Avenues to Understanding the Path to War in Iraq"

By Joseph Stieb, War on the Rocks, posted September 1

A review essay on Robert Draper's new book To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America into Iraq (Penguin Press, 2020). The author of the essay has a PhD in history from the University of North Carolina and is writing a book on the containment of Iraq.

 

"For Black Women, the 19th Amendment Marked, Not the End but the Beginning of the Movement for Voting Rights"

By Martha S. Jones, Washington Post, posted August 25

The author teaches history at Johns Hopkins University, and her book Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All is due in September from Basic Books.

 

"Belligerent Patriotism, or Why Donald Trump Cannot Mourn the Dead"

By John Bodnar, History News Network, posted August 23

The author is a professor emeritus of history at Indiana University and author of Divided by Terror: Patriotism in Post-9-11 America (U. of North Carolina Press, 2021).

 

"Jimmy Carter Tried to Make It Easier to Vote in 1977. The Right Stopped Him with the Same Arguments It Is Using Today"

By Rick Perlstein, Time, posted August 20

On the successful effort by the rising conservative movement within the Republican Party to force the party's congressional leaders to abandon their initial support for President Carter's proposals to make voter registration easier through national legislation.

 

"What We Don't Understand about Fascism"

By Victoria de Grazia, Zocalo Public Square, posted August 13

"Using the word incorrectly oversimplifies history - and won't help us address our current political crisis." The author teaches history at Columbia University and is the author of, among other books, of The Perfect Fascist: A Story of Love, Power, and Morality in Mussolini's Italy (Harvard U. Press, 2020).

 

Thanks to an anonymous reader for flagging some of the above articles. Suggestions can be sent to jimobrien48@gmail.com.

 

 

===========

j.

ASSANGE EXTRADITION: Craig Murray: Your Man in the Public Gallery: Assange Hearing—Day 6

Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers- The Prosecution of Julian Assange Is A  Threat Journalists Everywhere | Countercurrents

https://consortiumnews.com/2020/09/16/assange-extradition-craig-murray-your-man-in-the-public-gallery-assange-hearing-day-6/

by Craig Murray

+

Assange Hearing Day 9

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/55578.htm

by Craig Murray

 

+

Glenn Greenwald: Why The Media Is SILENT On Julian Assange's Trial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNFEXvyZdyU

(7:57)

+

Support This Website - Craig Murray

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/support-this-website/

 +

Courts Vindicate SNOWDEN!

with NSA Whistle-blower BILL BINNEY!

https://youtu.be/7NfW9FsAtn4

(15:19)

 

===========

 

k.

Bombshell #Evidence that #COVID is #Chromosome-8 #Human #DNA Faulty #PCR Test designed by Kary Mullis is not for viral infections.

https://framasphere.org/tags/dna

+

Humor

WE WILL MOCK YOU! A little tune for the sheeple

https://www.bitchute.com/video/sNzbt6PERyiL/

+

 

COVID-19: The Musical

Share the living daylights out of this Ya Super Sexy Awakened Bunch!

If You Care, Then Share

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3593038497396060&id=213131242053486

 

===========

l.

Heated Vaccine Debate Kennedy Jr. vs Dershowitz, a demolition of the official stance!

https://www.bitchute.com/video/k6PGlqbls4sf/

(1:16:49)

 

===========

m.

Global Capitalism: Capitalism’s Decline Accelerates [September 2020]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6vrc1mPsNo

with Richard Wolff

(video, 1:18:04)

+

“Democracy and the Pathology of Wealth”

https://youtu.be/wheMfMqu-H4

with Michael Parenti

(56 :37)

 

===========

n.

From: Moshé Machover
Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2020
Subject: Fwd: Palestiniennes (film documentaire)

---------- Forwarded message ---------

Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2020 at 11:36
Subject: Palestiniennes (film documentaire)
To: eitan.grossfeld

 

‌Bonjour,

Un documentaire en trois "courts" avec neuf portrait de femmes palestiniennes.

https://www.courrierinternational.com/node/1978949

Rappel : si le lien n'est pas actif, copiez puis collez le dans la barre d'adresse d'un nouvel onglet.

Patrick & Eïtan

https://track.sp.actionkit.com/q/7k-rjGQOxkwdqliAZhIUwQ~~/AAAAAQA~/RgRhLraDPlcEd2F3ZEIKADGDMUxfqqIAFlIZZnJhbmNpcy5mZWVsZXlAd2FuYWRvby5mclgEAAAAhg~~===========

o.

The working class is the vast majority of society

https://jacobinmag.com/2020/09/working-class-peoples-guide-capitalism-marxist-economics

by Hadas Thier

+

For Flint residents, money won't buy forgiveness

https://therealnews.com/stories/for-flint-residents-money-wont-buy-forgiveness

with Kim Brown and Melissa Mays

(45:52)

+

Pandemic, Wildfires & Heat Wave: Undocumented Farmworkers Face “Triple Threat” as West Coast Burns

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/9/14/us_wildfires_farmworkers

with Estella Cisneros,

legal director of the agriculture worker program for California Rural Legal Assistance.

(14:24)

+

On the Hidden History of Monopolies in America

https://youtu.be/MpTpX-90x94

with Richard Eskow and Thom Hartmann

(40:01)

 

===========

 

p.

"New York Times' Paul Krugman is DELUSIONAL!"

https://youtu.be/7V9xZLXppgY

with Jimmy Dore

(9:07)

 +

“On Credit, New Money, And The Road To Fascism"

https://youtu.be/IRVZRIWL-Zk

with Richard Wolff

(4:03)

 

===========

q.

Civilization in the Overdrive: A Conversation at the Edge of the Human Future

https://www.globalresearch.ca/conversation-edge-human-future/5723786

by Richard Falk and Konrad Stachnio

 

===========

r.

The Day Israel Attacked America

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx72tAWVcoM

Al Jazeera English

 (48:59)

 

===========

s.

What to do in November? The Editors for CovertAction Magazine Weigh In

https://mailchi.mp/covertactionmagazine.com/breaking-news-from-covertaction-magazine-8215932?e=361aa6282e

by Chris Agee and Jeremy Kuzmarov

+

Trump Vs The Military-Industrial-Complex: Coup Concerns Escalate

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/trump-vs-military-industrial-complex-coup-concerns-escalate

by Matthew Ehret

+

Prof. Richard Wolff on Trump, the Generals, and the Nazis

https://youtu.be/Qw_S0uQQjuk

(36:45)

 

===========

 

t.

News From Underground

From: Mark Crispin Miller

Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2020
Subject: [MCM] "Rogue" Chinese virologist presents "smoking gun" evidence that SARS-COV-2 was created in a lab

 

Missing from this plausible scenario, of course, is any mention of Dr. Fauci's $3.7 million grant to that very lab, after funding of such "gain-of-function" research had been banned:

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8211257/Wuhan-lab-performing-experiments-bats-coronavirus-caves.html

 

MCM

Blocked on facebook.

'Rogue' Chinese Virologist Joins Twitter, Publishes "Smoking Gun" Evidence COVID-19 Created In Lab

https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/rogue-chinese-virologist-joins-twitter-publishes-evidence-covid-19-created-lab

by Tylor Durdan

+

"I Am The Target": Silenced Chinese Virologist Tells Tucker COVID-19 Intentionally Released, CCP Trying To 'Disappear' Her

https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/i-am-target-silenced-chinese-virologist-tells-tucker-covid-19-intentionally-released-ccp

by Tyler Durden

Hours after her unceremonious Twitter ban for, we assume, presenting evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was created in a Wuhan lab, Chinese virologist Dr. Li-Meng Yan appeared on "Tucker Carlson Tonight," where she told the Fox News host that the virus is a "Frankenstein" which was designed to target humans which was intentionally released.

+

“Some red flags (so to speak) in that Chinese virologist's story”

https://twitter.com/o_rips/status/1306088632386633728?s=12

 

 

 

===========

u.

News From Underground

From: Mark Crispin Miller

Sent: Monday, September 07, 2020
Subject: [MCM] On the latest "Novichok" absurdity, as an example of "propaganda by omission" (James Corbett)

https://hive.blog/news/@corbettreport/how-to-read-the-news?fbclid=IwAR2gKMTcMJaVg8KRj25pEv63AwEaoIfxJHxUdURqCHezCnQwDq7IPTRtpkI

How To Read The News

corbettreport (73)

in #news • yesterday

by James Corbett
corbettreport.com
September 05, 2020

It's not the most original observation you'll read this week, but it's one of the most important: the news lies to you by omission.

Shocked? I thought not. But let's really interrogate what this means.

All of us (presumably) would agree with the observation that "the news is lying to you." But most people hearing that statement immediately interpret it to mean that the news is lying by commission, i.e., deliberately spreading information that they know to be untrue.

While this is certainly true sometimes (and we can all think of examples of the news outright lying about the facts of a case), blatant lies about verifiable facts represent only a tiny fraction of the media's mendacity. Most of the time, the talking heads of the corporate mouthpiece media are not telling fibs, per se; they're just leaving out vital pieces of the story.

Often, this type of lying—lying by omission—is a more effective means of duping the public than telling provably untrue statements about independent reality. When the talking heads of the corporate media leave out the proper context for a story, the audience can be led to incorrect conclusions about the world. And, since these perfidious presstitutes haven't technically said anything that's untrue, they can never be caught in their lie. They maintain plausible deniability about whether they knew the missing parts of the story.

In the interest of learning how to really read the news, then, let's look at an example of a news story where the media is hiding key information from the public and see what that news story looks like when we add the relevant context.

Hopefully you'll remember the Novichok nonsense that took place in Salisbury in 2018. If not, you'll definitely want to go back and re-read my article on how "The Russian Poison Story is WMD 2.0" and follow that up with a deep dive into the archive of Craig Murray's coverage of the subject and The Blogmire's excellent summary of the story.

In case you need a refresher, you can do what the normies do: turn to Wikipedia! Here's the first paragraph of the wiki summary of the story:

On 4 March 2018, Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military officer and double agent for the UK's intelligence services, and his daughter, Yulia Skripal, were poisoned in the city of Salisbury, England with a Novichok nerve agent, according to UK sources and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). After three weeks in a critical condition, Yulia regained consciousness and was able to speak; she was discharged from hospital on 9 April. Sergei was also in a critical condition until he regained consciousness one month after the attack; he was discharged on 18 May. A police officer was also taken into intensive care after attending the incident. By 22 March he had recovered enough to leave the hospital.

While everyone who was following the news at the time has likely heard various pieces of this narrative as it was being reported, only those obsessives who were really following all of the twists and turns in the case will know the incredible absurdities that were casually revealed and quickly buried in the weeks and months after the story fell out of the limelight. Those absurdities include:

I could go on. And on and on. (Trust me, we've only scratched the surface of the absurdity here.) But if you're reading this article in the first place, you likely know the drill by now: a spectacular event takes place, it's shoved down the public's throat as part of a campaign to demonize the bogeyman du jour, and it's promptly dropped as soon as contradictions or uncomfortable questions start to arise about what really happened.

In this case, the propagandistic value of the Skripal case is hardly difficult to divine. It was those dastardly Russians, sending their spies into the heart of enemy territory to kill an old retired double agent who hadn't been relevant to them in years because . . . reasons? And they did it in the most incredibly complicated (and ultimately ineffectual) way possible because . . . Putin wanted everyone to know that he was capable of (not quite) poisoning people in foreign countries?

. . . Or something like that. Just don't think too deeply about it.

But just when you thought that particular piece of absurdity had played itself out, it's back! That's right, there's been another high-profile novichok poisoning! This time the target was a person that the corporate lapdog press is referring to as the "leader" of the Russian "opposition," Alexei Navalny. Apparently, Putin didn't think he made his point well enough with the Skripals so he has once again resorted to using an arcane, elaborate, and ultimately ineffective poison to (not quite) kill his enemy in a way that would inevitably be immediately tied directly back to himself. The fiend!

. . . Or so the MSM would want you to believe. The truth, as always, is a little more complicated. Kit Knightly over at Off-Guardian breaks it down expertly in his article on the story:

Sigh. Here we go again. An incredibly unlikely narrative is being shoved down the public's throat in order to blame that arch-bogeyman, Vladimir Putin.

Never mind that the story makes no sense on its face.

Never mind that Moscow granted permission for Navalny (who is barely a blip on the Russian political radar) to leave the country for medical treatment, thus ensuring that their super secret plan to poison him with novichok would be uncovered and publicized to the world. (As Luke Harding helpfully explains in The Guardian: "The logical conclusion: Moscow wants the world to know.")

Never mind that it would make no sense for Putin to kill his opponent in such a way (namely, using a mysterious nerve agent that he had been blamed for using in the past and would inevitably implicate himself).

Never mind that this super deadly nerve agent failed to kill the last opponents that he supposedltried to use it on (and never mind that it has apparently failed once again).

Never mind any of this. The answer to any and all questions about the logic of this story is the same answer that the MSM offers to anyone who dares question why Assad would use messy and horribly ineffective chemical weapons on his own people when his military is on the brink of complete victory over the CIA-supported terrorists in his country. The answer is that Putin, just like Assad, is an insane, bloodthirsty, suicidal monster.

. . . And yet, that hardly seems like a satisfying answer to anyone with two brain cells to rub together, does it? It's almost like there's another part to this story, a missing puzzle piece that would help us to understand what's really happening here. And there is:

"Germany pressed to rethink Nord Stream 2 pipeline after Navalny poisoning"

Surprise, surprise. It looks like the Navalny case is giving all the opponents of Nord Stream 2 another excuse to derail the project.

If you've been following the pipeline politics that are reshaping diplomatic relations in Eurasia, you'll know that the US has used every trick in the book to halt the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. And if you haven't been following those pipeline politics, you'll want to re-read my 2017 article on "US Battles Russia for Heart of the EU," in which I noted:

Nord Stream 2 is, as the name suggests, an extension of Nord Stream, the natural gas pipeline connecting the Russian port town of Vyborg to the German university city of Greifswald. Nord Stream currently consists of two parallel lines with a capacity of 1.9 trillion cubic feet, but the Nord Stream 2 expansion is expected to increase that capacity to 3.9 trillion cubic feet.

As I reported at the time, the US imposed a new round of sanctions against Russia in 2017 and, surprisingly, the EU actually pushed back on those sanctions. Of course, they only pushed back because the sanctions were targeting European business interests, specifically any and all companies working with Russia in developing the Nord Stream 2 project. But however self-serving that pushback may have been, the incident did demonstrate there is a significant and rising faction in the EUreaucracy who favour building EU independence from the US and pursuing EU business interests, even if those interests are linked to Russia and/or China.

But now the latest dirty trick is being played to scuttle the pipeline project: the poisoning of Navalny with novichok, the nerve agent Absolutely 100% Guaranteed to Be Used Exclusively by the Russian Government or Your Money Back.

And it appears this ploy is working. As Rothschild Reuters reports:

Pressure mounted on German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday to reconsider the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which will take gas from Russia to Germany, after she said Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny had been poisoned with a Soviet-style nerve agent.

But even here we can detect the "lie by omission" strategy that is skewing our perception of this event. The only two people cited in the article as "pressuring" Merkel to end the pipeline deal are Norbert Roettgen, descirbed as "the conservative head of Germany’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee," and Wolfgang Ischinger, described as "chairman of the Munich Security Conference and a former ambassador to Washington."

What Reuters fails to inform its readers is that Norbert Roettgen is a co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations and a committed Russophobe who has been calling for a more aggressive German foreign policy against the Russians for years. Also missing from the Reuters report is that Wolfgang Ischinger is also a consummate globalist insider, sitting on the board of the Atlantic Council, the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on the Future of International Security and a raft of other globalist bodies.

So, to summarize: Merkel is under "mounting pressure" to scuttle Nord Stream 2 because of the phony-as-a-three-euro-bill Navalny novichok incident. This "pressure" is coming from precisely two men, both well-connected globalist insiders, and neither particularly influential in German politics. Merkel herself, as Reuters admits "has been unwavering in her support for the [Nord Stream] project" and has shown no sign whatsoever that she is even thinking of stopping the pipeline over the incident. But Reuters makes it a headline story and implies that her government is on the brink of succumbing to the pressure.

This is how the news is really reported. In bits and pieces, like a puzzle with only enough pieces there to give the audience an (often mistaken) impression of the events in question. Other pieces of the puzzle may be provided later as the story unfolds, but only for the purpose of further misleading the public with even more poorly reported information lacking in key details.

Sadly, this is the status quo of modern corporate mainstream dinosaur media. And the fact that this context-poor, misleading reporting is the norm these days means it falls on the readers of the news to fill in the gaps in these stories themselves. This often involves independent research and the ability to fit together disparate pieces of information reported in bits and pieces over many months and even years.

Naturally, it isn't feasible for every individual to do this with every story they ever see in the media. But at least keep this in mind: if you have only read one report on a major news event, you not only don't know the full story of that event but you may be even worse off than if you had never read it at all.

Alexander Pope may have meant it as a warning when he penned the famous line "A little learning is a dangerous thing." Unfortunately for humanity, the globalists and their media mouthpieces have managed to turn that observation into a business model.

#eu #pipeline #russia

---

For archives, please go to: http://archives.simplelists.com/nfu

===========

 

v.

France's Macron vows to deploy divisive 5G network despite opposition

https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20200915-france-s-macron-promises-to-deploy-divisive-5g-technology-despite-opposition-amish

by Michael Fitzpatrick

+

 “How Pandemics Unravel Economic Systems”

https://youtu.be/84y7WIDmAag

with Richard Wolf

(10:20)

+

Freedom Rider: Democrats’ Climate Change Lies

http://www.blackagendareport.com/freedom-rider-democrats-climate-change-lies

by Margaret Kimberley

 

===========

 

w.

Sanders supporters strike surprise blow against Rhode Island's Democratic establishment

https://therealnews.com/stories/sanders-supporters-strike-against-rhode-islands-democratic-establishment

with Jaisal Noor and Kimberly Dicupe

(13:30)

+

“How Bernie & Squad Actually Support Corporate State”

https://youtu.be/zpa7GR-EyF0

with Jimmy Dore and Chris Hedges

(1:35:20)

+

From: Bernie Sanders [mailto:info@berniesanders.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2020
Subject: I am writing to discuss the possibility that Trump will not voluntarily leave office if he loses in November, and then I am asking you to add your name to join me in calling on Mitch McConnell to form a bi-partisan committee to protect the integrity of our democratic elections.

 

I am very concerned about Trump's attempts to discredit and sabotage this election.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/ak-fbs/images/Bernie-Main-Logo-191202-600px.png

 

Yes. This is a presidential election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

Yes. This is an election about health care, education, the economy, climate change, criminal justice, and so many other important issues.

More importantly, however, this is an election about whether or not we retain American democracy. This is an election we must not lose.

Today, virtually every national poll and most battleground state polls have Biden ahead. Yet, Trump continues to repeat a message he tweeted several weeks ago: "The only way they can take this election away from us is if this is a rigged election."

Think about what that means. What he is saying is that if he wins the election, that's great. But if he loses, it’s rigged. And if it’s rigged, then he is not leaving office. Heads I win. Tails you lose.

Never before in the history of this country have we failed to have a peaceful transition of power from one president to the next. And now, for the first time, we are facing an election where it is not clear that a sitting president will voluntarily leave office if he loses.

I am not in the habit of quoting former President Ronald Reagan, but I think something that he said in his first inaugural address makes the point about how important this part of our heritage is.

Here is what President Reagan said:

“To a few of us here today, this is a solemn and most momentous occasion; and yet, in the history of our nation, it is a commonplace occurrence. The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution routinely takes place as it has for almost two centuries and few of us stop to think how unique we really are. In the eyes of many in the world, this every-four-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle."

Protecting this “orderly transfer of authority,” as President Reagan characterized it, is absolutely essential if all of us — Republicans, Democrats, Independents — want to protect our democracy. And the truth is that Donald Trump poses the biggest threat to our democracy that we've ever seen from a sitting president.

Remember: Donald Trump is the president who made the preposterous statement after the 2016 election, which he won, that "millions of people voted illegally." That's when he won. What will he say in 2020 if he loses?

This is the president who was asked by Chris Wallace on Fox News whether he would accept the election results. Trump refused to give a straight answer, and said: "I have to see. No, I’m not going to just say yes. I’m not going to say no, and I didn’t last time either."

This is the president who has talked about delaying the election.

This is the president who's now talking about a third term, in violation of the Constitution.

And it gets worse.

Last week Roger Stone, a convicted felon who was pardoned by Trump, stated on a right-wing radio show that Trump should declare "martial law" if he loses the election.

Roger Stone continued to say:

"The ballots in Nevada on election night should be seized by federal marshals and taken from the state. They are completely corrupted. No votes should be counted from the state of Nevada if that turns out to be the provable case."

Stone is following the rhetoric from Trump that mail-in ballots will be "rigged," and the election should be called into question before a single vote has been counted.

And just the other day Michael Caputo, a right-wing political operative who, incredibly, is the assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, made the outrageous suggestion that left-wing voters are planning an armed revolt following the election. He stated in a video to his social media followers: "If you carry guns, buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it’s going to be hard to get."

Think about that. A senior Trump official is telling Trump supporters to purchase ammunition for an armed conflict here at home.

Trump himself has recently threatened to use the Insurrection Act — a law that allows the president to bring in the National Guard to confront civil unrest. If there are protests on election night, Trump says: "We’ll put them down very quickly if they do that. We have the right to do that. We have the power to do that, if we want.”

At a time when Trump is urging tens of thousands of his supporters to intimidate voters by becoming "poll watchers," he is now threatening to bring in the National Guard if there are protests.

It is becoming clearer by the day that Donald Trump will do whatever it takes to maintain the power of the presidency.

Miles Taylor, a life-long Republican who previously served as chief of staff inside the Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security, warned that Trump will stop at nothing to defeat Biden.

"Put nothing past Donald Trump," Taylor told the Associated Press. "He will do anything to win. If that means climbing over other people, climbing over his own people, or climbing over U.S. law, he will do it. People are right to be concerned."

In addition, after Trump proposed postponing the election, another Republican, Steven Calabresi, one of the founders of the conservative Federalist Society, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times condemning Trump. Calabresi called Trump's comments "fascistic" and said that his call to delay the election was an impeachable offense.

So, given this very dangerous situation, what are we going to do about it?

Here is what I believe needs to happen in order to prepare for what could be an unprecedented chain of events following the November election:

Let me be very clear:

This is the most important election in the modern history of this country. And for the first time in America, it appears that we have a sitting president who will be reluctant to leave office if he fails to win re-election.

We absolutely must come together in November to defeat Trump by the largest margin possible and stop him from dragging our country in an authoritarian direction. Nothing less than the future of our democracy and our country is at stake.

Over the next 48 days, let us do all we can to deliver a decisive victory for Joe Biden on November 3. And once we do that, let us remain vigilant to see to it that Trump allows for the peaceful transition of power.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders

===========

 

x.

News From Underground

From: Mark Crispin Miller

Sent: Sunday, August 30, 2020

Subject: [MCM] Huge crowds protest corona-fascism in Germany, UK, Poland, France, Bolivia and elsewhere, ALL blacked out by "our free press"

 

 

 

Celia Farber posted: " I had family duties yesterday that took me away from computer from 6 am to 8 pm and, having only slept 2 hours the night before, I literally thought I had fallen asleep and was dreaming when I began to watch the clips of the protests in Berlin, London, "

 

New post on CELIA FARBER - The Truth Barrier

 

Massive Crowds Around The World Gather To Protest Covid Tyranny: Germany, UK, Poland, France, Bolivia and More Take To The Streets By The Tens of Thousands Amidst Total Media Blackout

by Celia Farber

I had family duties yesterday that took me away from computer from 6 am to 8 pm and, having only slept 2 hours the night before, I literally thought I had fallen asleep and was dreaming when I began to watch the clips of the protests in Berlin, London, Warsaw, Manchester, and countless other cities, […]

Read more of this post

Celia Farber | August 30, 2020 at 9:05 am | URL: https://wp.me/p2i4KX-2QG

Comment

   See all comments

 

Unsubscribe to no longer receive posts from CELIA FARBER - The Truth Barrier.
Change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions.

Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser:
https://www.thetruthbarrier.com/2020/08/30/massive-crowds-around-the-world-gather-to-protest-covid-tyranny-germany-uk-poland-france-bolivia-and-more-take-to-the-streets-by-the-tens-of-thousands-amidst-total-media-blackout/

 

+

News From Underground

From: Mark Crispin Miller
Sent: Sunday, August 16, 2020
Subject: [MCM] "Forced isolation may be the only way to stop resurgence of virus" (Says WHO?)

 

This is demonstrably false---and a clear sign that this COVID crisis was devised to turn the whole world into a neo-feudal high-tech playground for the ultra-rich, with just enough of us left living (if you can call it that) to service them.

 

"The virus" is NOT "resurgent," as the data makes quite clear. Only those who get their "news" about it from Big Pharma's advertising venues---a captive audience that, unfortunately, includes millions of "educated" people---believes it's on the rise again, since that's what the New York Times and NPR et al. keep telling us, based on morbid half-truths, terroristic rumor-mongering, factoids taken out of context, the deliberate obfuscation of what constitutes a COVID-19 "case," unrelenting CENSORSHIP of inconvenient truths, and a staggering array of bald-faced lies, about the infectiousness of children, the effectiveness of HCQ+, the necessity of masks, and every other aspect of this "crisis."

 

"Forced isolation" wasn't necessary in Japan, Taiwan, Iceland, South Korea, Sweden or Belarus---or Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas or the Dakotas---which all got through the crisis very well with no lockdown of any kind; nor was it necessary ANYWHERE, though it was surely used in China and New Zealand---models of repressiveness applauded by the same high interests pushing just that sort of crackdown here and now. This technocratic faux-"solution" is political, not medical, and represents an existential threat to freedom, health and happiness throughout the US and beyond.

 

This must be stopped, and WILL be stopped, because it's too big, and too evil, NOT to fail; and because there are enough of us, and will be eventually be even more of us, who just won't take it 

 

MCM

 

Forced Isolation May Be the Only Way to Stop Resurgence of Virus

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-13/forced-isolation-may-be-the-only-way-to-stop-resurgence-of-virus


Forced Isolation May Be the Only Way to Stop Resurgence of Virus

(Bloomberg) -- Flare-ups from Australia to Japan show the world hasn’t learned an early lesson from the coronavirus crisis: to stop the spread, those with mild or symptom-free coronavirus infections must be forced to isolate, both from their communities and family.

In Australia, where Victoria state has been reporting record deaths, some 3,000 checks last month on people who should have been isolating at home found 800 were out and about. In Japan, where the virus has roared back, people are staying home but aren’t in isolation: 40% of elderly patients are getting sick from family members in the same apartments.

The failure to effectively manage contagious people with mild or no symptoms is a driving factor behind some of the world’s worst resurgences. But lessons from Italy, South Korea and others that have successfully contained large-scale outbreaks show that there’s a tried-and-tested approach to cutting off transmission: move them out of their homes into centralized facilities while they get over their infections, which usually doesn’t require longer than a few weeks.

“A laissez-faire approach naively trusting everyone to be responsible has been shown to be ineffective, as there will always be a proportion who will breach the terms of the isolation,” said Jeremy Lim, adjunct professor at the National University of Singapore’s Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health.

Faced with a new cluster this week after 102 days without a locally transmitted case, New Zealand has quickly enacted this strategy, placing 17 people -- including two children below the age of 10 -- into centralized quarantine.

But other countries facing sustained spread like Australia and the U.S. are not broadly enacting the policy despite its proven track record. Their unwillingness -- or inability -- to do so underscores the challenges faced by liberal democracies whose populations are less likely to tolerate measures that require individual sacrifice for the greater good. 

Not at Home

The existence of a large group of carriers who hardly feel sick is a unique feature of the coronavirus crisis, and a major factor that has driven its rapid spread across the globe. Unlike in previous outbreaks like the 2003 SARS epidemic, many infected people don’t feel ill enough to stay home, and so spread the pathogen widely as they go about their daily lives.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that 40% of Covid-19 infections are asymptomatic.

In Wuhan, the Chinese city where the coronavirus first emerged last year, mildly sick patients were originally turned away from hospitals and told to rest at home, given that the overwhelmed health-care system needed to tend to the most severe cases. But health experts soon found that these people would infect their family members and others as they moved around in the community, precipitating a deluge of cases.

Read more on successful virus containment strategies in Asia:

These Elite Contact Tracers Show the World How to Beat Covid-19Virus Hunters Sift Through Sewage to Detect Covid-19 HotspotsAs China Fights Second Wave, Taiwan Starts Stockpiling Again

Beijing Just Reported No Cases. Here’s How They Turned It Around

Bringing mild or asymptomatic patients to designated facilities -- re-purposed convention centers, hotels and stadiums -- for basic medical care marked a turning point in the city’s fight against the coronavirus. Simply separating them from healthy people halted the pathogen’s silent spread through the community.

The strategy has since been used in Italy, Singapore and South Korea at the height of their own coronavirus outbreaks earlier this year. Faced with a resurgence last month, Hong Kong converted an exhibition center to accommodate mild Covid-19 patients and is building more such facilities.

In New Zealand, the government put “a lot of thought” into enacting the policy, and is asking family members of confirmed cases to go into centralized quarantine with them if they require care, said director general of health Ashley Bloomfield.

a group of people in a room: Fitting Out and Finishing Touches to a Dedicated Covid Health Centre as India Extends Lockdown

© Bloomberg Fitting Out and Finishing Touches to a Dedicated Covid Health Centre as India Extends Lockdown

Finishing touches are applied to a ward at a dedicated Covid Health Centre at the Bandra Kurla Complex exhibition ground in Mumbai, India on May 17.

Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg

The approach is effective firstly because it prevents people from infecting family members in the same household -- over 80% of cluster infections in China cities were in households after mild patients were allowed to stay home, said a Lancet study. In Europe, the surge of household infections drove Italy’s Milan to start putting such cases in hotels, enabling the country to gain control over its outbreak in early May.

Beyond household spread, the strategy is necessitated by a facet of human nature that’s been seen time and again across countries and cultures: left to their own devices, some people just won’t follow the rules.

In Australia and Japan, infected people who’ve been told to stay home have gone out for a variety of reasons -- some can’t work from home and need the income, while others want to pick up groceries and supplies. One woman in Tokyo traveled cross country by bus after having her infection confirmed.

“It is far better to be more aggressive in the short term with even mild cases than it is to allow such cases to slip under the radar,” said Nicholas Thomas, associate professor in health security at the City University of Hong Kong.

Locked Up

But forcibly moving mild or asymptomatic patients into centralized facilities has been met with backlash in some countries where citizens are not as accepting of government directives. Some people might lose their jobs if they disappear for two weeks, or have caretaking responsibilities for young children or older parents where it’s unfeasible to be separated.

“People would be wondering what on earth they’re doing locked up in a hospital,” said Stephen Leeder, emeritus professor of public health and community medicine at the University of Sydney. “From what I know about the Australian psyche, I don’t think it would go down all that well.”

In places like Venezuela and India where conditions in quarantine facilities are poor, the prospect of being taken away has caused some to avoid being tested or to lie to contact-tracers for fear of being found positive, making the work of health officials more challenging.

a screenshot of a cell phone: Victoria state accounts for almost all the flareup's new cases

© Bloomberg Victoria state accounts for almost all the flareup's new cases

In an emailed response to Bloomberg News queries, the Department of Health and Human Services in Victoria said the government provides alternative accommodation for quarantine, but that these are for health workers “who may not be able to safely live at their normal address” and other vulnerable groups.

Rather than forcing isolation on mild cases, authorities have locked down 5 million residents in Melbourne and are tightening restrictions until new cases come under control.

a store in a subway station: Wearing Face Coverings Becomes Mandatory in Melbourne

© Bloomberg Wearing Face Coverings Becomes Mandatory in Melbourne

An information sign informs all customers that they must wear a protective mask at all times at a shopping precinct in Melbourne on July 23.

Photographer: Carla Gottgens/Bloomberg

Officials are using a combination of stepped-up checks and fines of A$4,957 ($3,550) to convince infected people to stay home, while repeat offenders risk a A$20,000 penalty in court. More than 500 military personnel are helping the police conduct checks on 4,000 households every day to ensure those who are supposed to be staying home are there.

To be sure, aggressive and thorough contact-tracing and case follow-up have successfully contained outbreaks in countries like Germany without a centralized quarantine strategy. But these places relied on an army of efficient workers hunting down every chain of transmission, a resource not many governments have had time to build up.

“The classic practice in public health is to identify, trace and quarantine,” said Yang Gonghuan, former deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. “But how that is carried out depends on popular sentiment and the country’s resources.”

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

===========

 

y.

Pandemic Edition | Rumble

“Class Dismissed”

https://youtu.be/UAsi97TSBDQ

with Michael Moore

(43:02)